Hinch suspended for 1 year - Printable Version
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RE: Hinch suspended for 1 year - ColoradoTree - 01-13-2020
I see all the comments/tweets/analysis about how MLB hammered the Astros, while my primary reaction has been fury that the players are skating on this.
These are grown men who intentionally cheated. This was a player-instigated scheme that Cora aided and abetted, with Hinch and Luhnow far more removed from it. (To be clear, Hinch deserved this. He knew about it, and I don't really care that he says he didn't approve--he didn't put a stop to it or raise it up the flagpole internally.) And Manfred says he's declining to discipline players because of the sheer number of players involved, and the difficulty involved in sorting out blame. Well, I'm sorry, Mr. Commissioner, but that's the job. You dig into what happened, you figure out who the ringleaders were, and you have tiered suspensions. The guys who instigated it get more than the guys who actively participated, and those guys get more than the guys who knew about it but didn't say anything. Only the truly unaware (e.g., September call-ups, some of the pitchers who legitimately may not have known) should get off scot-free.
I fully understand that it would be an absolute mess. I get that MLB doesn't want to drag this out and wants to get back to positive headlines as soon as possible, and the inevitable union grievances over particular discipline would drag this out. But them's the breaks. Seems to me that if you've got a player-driven cheating scheme on your hand, the proper response would be more player suspensions rather than shrugging your shoulders and letting all of the offending players skate. Instead, the takeaway from all of this is "players, do whatever you want to do." MLB isn't really interested in rooting out the cheating in its ranks. It just wants to avoid bad headlines. Punting on player discipline here is cowardly, and it does nothing to actually clean up the game.
Shoeless Joe Jackson would like a word, Mr. Commissioner.
RE: Hinch suspended for 1 year - Phogge - 01-13-2020
OK BC it's Harry Truman's fault.
RE: Hinch suspended for 1 year - oldalum - 01-13-2020
(01-13-2020, 12:44 PM)stupac2 Wrote: Maybe one of those fake sailing kids, if any graduated?No "fake sailing kids" graduated from Stanford. One was admitted through the regular decision process without the benefit of the nod from the sailing coach. Her admission was later rescinded because she had submitted an application containing a false activity. Two others never attended Stanford.
RE: Hinch suspended for 1 year - OutsiderFan - 01-13-2020
(01-13-2020, 03:00 PM)ColoradoTree Wrote: I see all the comments/tweets/analysis about how MLB hammered the Astros, while my primary reaction has been fury that the players are skating on this.
These are grown men who intentionally cheated. This was a player-instigated scheme that Cora aided and abetted, with Hinch and Luhnow far more removed from it. (To be clear, Hinch deserved this. He knew about it, and I don't really care that he says he didn't approve--he didn't put a stop to it or raise it up the flagpole internally.) And Manfred says he's declining to discipline players because of the sheer number of players involved, and the difficulty involved in sorting out blame. Well, I'm sorry, Mr. Commissioner, but that's the job. You dig into what happened, you figure out who the ringleaders were, and you have tiered suspensions. The guys who instigated it get more than the guys who actively participated, and those guys get more than the guys who knew about it but didn't say anything. Only the truly unaware (e.g., September call-ups, some of the pitchers who legitimately may not have known) should get off scot-free.
I fully understand that it would be an absolute mess. I get that MLB doesn't want to drag this out and wants to get back to positive headlines as soon as possible, and the inevitable union grievances over particular discipline would drag this out. But them's the breaks. Seems to me that if you've got a player-driven cheating scheme on your hand, the proper response would be more player suspensions rather than shrugging your shoulders and letting all of the offending players skate. Instead, the takeaway from all of this is "players, do whatever you want to do." MLB isn't really interested in rooting out the cheating in its ranks. It just wants to avoid bad headlines. Punting on player discipline here is cowardly, and it does nothing to actually clean up the game.
Shoeless Joe Jackson would like a word, Mr. Commissioner.
Good points.
One thing I wonder is if the MLBPA wouldn't allow players to cooperate or would have made it difficult. The Astros team (owner's side of things) had no choice but to cooperate with the MLB Commissioner's investigation.
But regardless, it seems the investigation concluded there wasn't a clear competitive advantage gained by the sign stealing scheme. And the reality is if the club's manager and GM create an environment where players would never consider cheating, or if they did, not be allowed to go forward with it, the player issue is kind of moot. I'm not going to die on the "players shouldn't be punished" hill, but I can see the logic and pragmatism in the approach Manfred took.
RE: Hinch suspended for 1 year - burger - 01-13-2020
Punishing individual players was much more complicated than going after management. From what I read (all second hand), MLB had a hard time figuring out to what extent individual players were involved. Plus some of the involved players are on new teams now--how do you handle that without punishing the new team, which was likely unaware?
RE: Hinch suspended for 1 year - CTcard - 01-13-2020
(01-13-2020, 02:00 PM)burger Wrote:(01-13-2020, 01:22 PM)Farm93 Wrote: With enough alums eventually there will be some that will be convicted of crimes. I am not sure I want to compare those that have been convicted of crimes with cheating in sports.
Unfortunately for Hinch, the formula for most embarrassing alum is: [seriousness of actions] * [how much publicity the actions are getting]. Organized sign stealing is not the worst thing a Stanford alum as done (Elizabeth Holmes committed worse crimes every day before breakfast). But Hinch is going to be off the charts on the second component this year.
Elizabeth stands a good chance of retaking the title as soon as her trial starts.
Whether Holmes is an alumna or not depends upon the never ending debate as to whether one must graduate from an institution to have alumn(a/us/i/ae) status.
Generally I'd put Ted Streleski at the top of that list ... but of course memories are short.
Though I'm not sure if he qualifies for the got-a-degree version, he clearly attended for plenty long enough.
RE: Hinch suspended for 1 year - Farm93 - 01-13-2020
(01-13-2020, 02:25 PM)magnus Wrote:Golf is boring, sex still sells and sizzles. The Woods events were all about adultery and sex by the rich and famous, that stuff sells even for those that did not follow golf.(01-13-2020, 02:14 PM)Farm93 Wrote: Baseball...
Golfer's ...
The majority of the population would probably see mention of either sport and think... boring. =)
10 years later that event is not on the mind of many. This baseball thing will be a non-issue to most in a few weeks at most. MLB is not as important as it was 20 years ago.
The NFL will dominate for the next 30 days.
NCAA hoops and NBA playoffs will dominate sports coverage for the 2-4 months after the NFL
The Olympics and Olympic qualification will take it from there.
RE: Hinch suspended for 1 year - 82lsju - 01-13-2020
(01-13-2020, 07:19 PM)CTcard Wrote: Generally I'd put Ted Streleski at the top of that list ... but of course memories are short.
Though I'm not sure if he qualifies for the got-a-degree version, he clearly attended for plenty long enough.
alumni database shows him with an MS in math in 1962
RE: Hinch suspended for 1 year - Phogge - 01-13-2020
“Golf is boring.” Boooooooo!
“MLB is not as important....” Quadruple booooooooooo!
RE: Hinch suspended for 1 year - Farm93 - 01-13-2020
(01-13-2020, 09:56 PM)Phogge Wrote: “Golf is boring.” Boooooooo!It is the way it is. This scandal would be EPIC if it happened 40 years ago. It would have been significant if it happened 20 years ago.
“MLB is not as important....” Quadruple booooooooooo!
In 2020 it wasn't even one of the top stories of the sports day. (NFL playoffs & CFP easily dominated the day) So much so, that I can't help but think MLB selected this day on purpose. This is a bad day for baseball, so pretty clever to hide it in a day when NFL and CFP will capture the leading links and trending hashtags.
lex24 - lex24 - 01-13-2020
Cheating? In baseball? Impossible. Hinch got what he deserved. Cora is going to get his soon. Suspect Boston will be looking for a new manager as well.
RE: Hinch suspended for 1 year - BostonCard - 01-13-2020
As they say, cheating is allowed in baseball; getting caught is not.
BC
RE: Hinch suspended for 1 year - magnus - 01-13-2020
(01-13-2020, 10:02 PM)Farm93 Wrote: In 2020 it wasn't even one of the top stories of the sports day. (NFL playoffs & CFP easily dominated the day)
Indeed, on nbcsports live (or whatever they call the audio clip that talks about the daily sports news), it was #3, behind CFP and NBA scores.
On ESPN's version, it was #2 behind the CFP.
This was when I asked google around 830PM.
RE: Hinch suspended for 1 year - winflop - 01-14-2020
(01-13-2020, 12:19 PM)OutsiderFan Wrote: Holy smokes! Manfred is not fooling around.
- GM and Manager suspended for a year.
- Astros lose first and second round picks for 2020 and 2021
- $5M fine
- Assistant GM put on the Pete Rose list (prohibited from any MLB association)
I think the suspensions and fine were too low. $5M is petty cash. The fine should have been more like $50M. Suspensions should have been at least double.
At least the owner acted with some level of integrity in firing Hinch and the GM.
RE: Hinch suspended for 1 year - Mick - 01-14-2020
(01-13-2020, 10:19 PM)BostonCard Wrote: As they say, cheating is allowed in baseball; getting caught is not.
BC
My football coach in high school used to say that a few times a season, or something similar ("It ain't cheating if you don't get caught."). Maybe not the message you want to communicate to young minds, but then, he wasn't a paragon of moral virtue. He was just a few years out of Humboldt State when he was our coach, years later he was principal of a local high school, then high up in Santa Clara Unified's administration. His last name is a homonym for a Star Wars villain and that, combined with his sketchy personality meant that he became naturally known as the Sith Lord.
RE: Hinch suspended for 1 year - ColoradoTree - 01-14-2020
(01-13-2020, 06:41 PM)burger Wrote: Punishing individual players was much more complicated than going after management. From what I read (all second hand), MLB had a hard time figuring out to what extent individual players were involved. Plus some of the involved players are on new teams now--how do you handle that without punishing the new team, which was likely unaware?
Of course it's complicated. You need to interview every player, and get some sense of who the ringleaders were, and that requires some players to roll over and give up the names of those that were more central to the scheme than they were. (Guys who talk get suspensions reduced, those who don't get them lengthened.) Some investigations are complicated. That doesn't mean they're not worth doing. There would almost certainly be challenges to whatever suspensions would be handed out, with players arguing they weren't as culpable as others. That's fine. That's part of the deal. Maybe some of them win and get suspensions reduced. That's fine! But the message is still sent, and their is a process for determining whether the Commissioner's judgment was appropriate. My fundamental gripe is that Commissioner's judgment was that he shouldn't make a judgment about the players. There is a rot inside the Astros' culture, and MLB decided to put a band-aid over it.
And yes, the new team would feel the brunt of any suspension of one of its players. But that kind of thing can be remedied by granting supplemental draft picks, luxury tax relief, etc. MLB has tools to ease the sting of a suspension.
When you don't suspend players when it's a player-driven scheme, then how does that disincentivize players from doing something similar in the future? They're all getting every last check. So their manager got fired--they still got theirs.
(01-14-2020, 01:45 AM)winflop Wrote: At least the owner acted with some level of integrity in firing Hinch and the GM.
I'll credit the owner's integrity when he suspends any of his players in what, again, was a player-driven scheme. Until then, I'll presume this is an attempt to draw a line under the scandal and get back to getting positive headlines. "Look at me, I'm virtuous!" And yet, he is punishing none of the central players in the saga.
RE: Hinch suspended for 1 year - 82lsju - 01-14-2020
Pete Rose talks......
Quote:According to Rose though, Manfred fell way short of giving the Astros due punishment.
“So they fire the GM, they fire the manager, and (MLB) probably is going to get (Red Sox manager) Alex Cora, who was the (Astros) bench coach at the time,” Rose said. “But what about the players who were behind this and taking the knowledge? Should they get off scot-free?"Don’t you have to do something to the players who were accepting the stolen signs? Nothing’s been done. Is that fair?”
....
“Most players don’t give a damn about what happens to an organization as long as it doesn’t happen to them,” Rose said. “If I’m a player and every time I bat I’m getting the signs from the dugout, I’m just as guilty as the guy who is giving me the signs.”
https://www.nj.com/yankees/2020/01/pete-rose-feels-astros-cheating-worse-than-gambling-questions-players-getting-off-scot-free.html
RE: Hinch suspended for 1 year - ColoradoTree - 01-14-2020
(01-14-2020, 02:22 PM)82lsju Wrote: Pete Rose talks......
Quote:According to Rose though, Manfred fell way short of giving the Astros due punishment.
“So they fire the GM, they fire the manager, and (MLB) probably is going to get (Red Sox manager) Alex Cora, who was the (Astros) bench coach at the time,” Rose said. “But what about the players who were behind this and taking the knowledge? Should they get off scot-free?"Don’t you have to do something to the players who were accepting the stolen signs? Nothing’s been done. Is that fair?”
....
“Most players don’t give a damn about what happens to an organization as long as it doesn’t happen to them,” Rose said. “If I’m a player and every time I bat I’m getting the signs from the dugout, I’m just as guilty as the guy who is giving me the signs.”
https://www.nj.com/yankees/2020/01/pete-rose-feels-astros-cheating-worse-than-gambling-questions-players-getting-off-scot-free.html
When Pete Rose is questioning why MLB wasn't harder on cheating players, it might be time for MLB to reevaluate its course of action here....
RE: Hinch suspended for 1 year - Phogge - 01-14-2020
If Farm is correct then the Age of Instant Gratification has ruined you all. All the I Phones, IPAD's, CGI's, Doordashes, Amazons and their ilk can't hold a candle to sitting in a bleacher seat on a summer day watching a ball game. As the Babe said in his last speech, "The only real game in the world, baseball."
RE: Hinch suspended for 1 year - BostonCard - 01-14-2020
(01-14-2020, 03:06 PM)ColoradoTree Wrote: When Pete Rose is questioning why MLB wasn't harder on cheating players, it might be time for MLB to reevaluate its course of action here....
"I may have bet on baseball games, but I never did something as underhanded as stealing signs."
BC